


Like a Whisper in the Wind

by silversparrow



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Self-Harm, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 04:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3195500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silversparrow/pseuds/silversparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall likes to pretend that everything is alright, but he can't hide the cracks biting through his skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Whisper in the Wind

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I would like to give a massive thank you everyone who reviewed my [last](http://archiveofourown.org/works/852101) fic! I know it's been a few months already and for the longest time, I felt it would have been awkward to start replying to your comments after a hundred million years, but I do plan on replying to your wonderful comments because I really do appreciate the feedback! You are all brilliant!
> 
> I didn't mean for this fic to end up the way it is, or even publishing it, really, because I didn't really know where to take it at first. I was stressing out a lot about finals last semester and I needed something to take my mind off that wasn't videogames or tumblr, and I just started writing this after watching _Tom at the Farm_ (which I recommend) one day without any plot points in mind or anything, which made this all the more difficult to finish. But I am happy with how this ended up and it made me remember just how much I love writing in the first place.
> 
> The last work in my "Ghost of You" verse; the [first](http://archiveofourown.org/works/400698) one and the [second](http://archiveofourown.org/works/475385) one.

At first, you don’t understand it, not quite sure what to think.

He’s there, standing a foot away from you, arms on his side, wind playing with his hair. He’s always had such nice hair, such nice curls, how they flutter through air like ribbons, swaying like wisps of smoke. His hands are large, his legs are long and they’re thin, they’re _so thin_ and you start to wonder if he’s starving himself, and you almost want to ask him how often he eats and what time he eats dinner and what did he have for lunch today—

 _“Niall,”_ he says, placing a hand on your shoulder, but you don’t look up, only keep your eyes on his legs, the fabric of his jeans stretching against his bones like skin, black as tar, dangerously close to snapping in half. He’s wearing shiny black shoes and you can almost see yourself in the reflection, can see the length of his arm like a bridge on the verge of collapsing, can see the quivering of your blue eyes as the grip tightens on your collarbone.

 _“Niall,”_ he says again, voice dark brown just like his hair, _“look at me.”_

But you don’t want to, don’t want to take your eyes off his shoelaces, the strings wound tight like the snakes twisting around your throat and you can feel yourself breathing heavier, can feel the air thinning around your lungs and his hair’s not dancing anymore, clinging wet against his face like an inkblot on paper, and soon, it’s raining, raining _hard_ , the droplets pelting your skin like a hail of bullets, darkness wrapping around your body like a blanket and you’re scared, you’re _really_ scared because you’re not sure what’s going on.

 _“Look at me, Niall,”_ he says one more time, all familiarity gone, replaced by a sharp scratching against your ears, scraping them raw and you can see blood pooling from the puddle around your feet, angry crimson red gathering around his shoes, and you see them pouring out from bright red slits on his wrists, the cuts stretching all the way up his arm and blurring together to form morbid sentences you can’t bring yourself to read, and his skin smells metallic, smells of decay. That’s when you let yourself look at him, and you slowly lift your eyes, up his chest, following the dark veins pulsing in his neck, and then you see him.

Only it’s not him, it _can’t_ be him, don’t believe your eyes because he doesn’t look like that, doesn’t look like an empty mask made of skin stretched against his face like plastic without any eyes, no nose, no mouth. _Not Harry_.

And you shake your head and you blink and blink and _blink_ and you see Zayn staring at you, eyebrows creased, hands tight on your shoulders, and you take a moment to realize that you’re back in your living room, the sun shining bright through the windows like soft flames walking on your skin.

“You’re bleeding again,” Zayn says with a deep sigh, standing up and walking across the room with heavy footsteps, the vibrations shaking you back to reality, and when you look down on your shirt, you see the drops of blood drying on the fabric, and then you realize that the metallic smell is coming from your nose.

“Here,” Zayn says, handing you a damp towel, and you slide it from his fingers and gently dab your nose, watching him watch you like a hospital patient, hazel eyes trying to read every thought going through your mind. But he can’t read your mind, he never could, and you shift your eyes back out the window and watch the birds flying over the trees, and you swear you can almost hear every flap of their tiny little wings.

“Are you alright?” Zayn finally asks, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands dangling in the space between his legs, and you turn your head to look at him with a nod, his eyes trying to unravel you again, trying to tear at your bricks piece by piece just so he catch a glimpse of what’s lurking inside.

“I’m fine,” you reply with a smile, folding the towel into a small square and resting it on your lap, and you see the tiniest twitch of his brow, the smallest movement in his ears, but he only shrugs and shifts in his seat. He’s good at this, a champion at pretending, pretending that things like this don’t faze him, not one bit, but you know it affects him, affects him more than he ever lets on, and then you start to see the cracks creeping on the porcelain like spider webs black as night.

“Was it him again?” he asks nonchalantly, looking out the window and crossing his arms over his chest, trying his best to avoid your eyes because he knows you saw it, saw the flash of worry flit across his face but you can’t blame him for worrying, not when it seems like things start to go wrong the moment you see Harry in the back of your mind, and he ends up having to pick up the pieces in the end without expecting anything in return.

“It’s the same dream,” you say, and you dab your nose again when you feel the trail blood prickling its way down your lips. “Always the same dream.”

Zayn turns back to you and raises his brow, lifting his leg and crossing it over his knee. He always plays it cool, tries to convince the world that he’s unaffected by anything but ice has always had the tendency to crack at the smallest change in the temperature, and you can see the tendrils on the porcelain getting longer, biting through his eyebrows, his eyes, a little chip off his nose, and you watch him as he paints crude plaster on the surface and pretends like he’s brand new.

“Did you see his face?” he asks, and that’s when you know he’s gearing up for an operation, readying a scalpel in his hand because he’s always wanted to know the story, _his_ story, always been curious about the taboo you’d placed on the subject like it’s a religion, something that should not be touched, but he knows how you feel about it, how you feel that the past should stay in the past like it’s supposed to, shouldn’t be dug up like an artifact to be examined and displayed for the whole world to see, and you steel yourself and match his stoic façade like a stand-off and it becomes a competition of who can pretend that nothing is wrong the longest. “Do you even remember what he looks like?”

The question comes out like a bolt of lightning from his mouth and you’re caught off-guard, your mind bombarded by images of Harry and the softness of his hair, the roughness of his hands, the feeling of his warm skin against your lips, the scratch of his stubble on your cheek, but you can’t see his face, can’t see his eyes—were they green, blue, brown—no, that can’t be right, you just can’t forget them like they never existed because you can still feel the ghost of his gaze lingering on your face, can feel his breath crawling across your neck like threads of smoke and—

“No,” you whisper, feeling gravity pushing down on your chest like you’re being pulled into the floorboards underneath your feet, and you can feel your nose starting to bleed again.

_“I can’t remember what he looks like.”_

  


-

  


There’s a bench at the park sitting in the shade of an oak tree, an old bench, old as time itself, marked by engravings of initials, declarations of love, and random words that mean nothing and everything at the same time, with a twisted armrest, rusted in places, and crunchy brown leaves strewn everywhere like monochromatic confetti.

It’s seven o’clock in the morning and the winter fog’s starting to roll in like a thick layer of snow, and you’re sitting at the bench with your legs crossed and jacket pulled in tight, trying to tell yourself to stop crying.

You wipe your cheeks with the back of your hand and try to steady your breathing, tendrils of white smoke spilling out from your lips and curling against your nose, coalescing with the fog right above your head and you wish it would take your sobs away with it because you can feel your shoulders getting weaker with every shake, lungs getting heavier and heavier until you can feel your ribs cracking from the pressure.

You try to tell yourself he’s not worth it, that he’s just a stupid, stupid boy who can’t tell right from left and that you should have expected this, shouldn’t be so surprised about the fact that he brought home another man after you told him you’d be gone for a few days to visit your family because he’s always been a slimy git, always been bad, bad news from the get-go but you’d let your desperate need for a physical connection blind you from seeing the truth. And maybe you brought this on yourself, maybe it’s your willful ignorance that kept his charades going for so long and you just stubbornly refused to acknowledge the fact that he never loved you and maybe you’re not meant to find happiness and maybe you’re just—

_“Are you alright?”_

The voice gives you a start and you look up in a flash. You find yourself looking right into the greenest eyes you’ve ever seen and for a second, the shaking subsides, the tears stop coming, and all you can see is the stranger standing a foot away from you, hands deep in his pockets, slightly bent over to level his face with yours, curly brown hair softly swaying with the breeze.

“Are you alright?” he asks again like you didn’t hear him the first time, and it takes you a moment to recover from the stupor, trying to tell yourself that you’re not losing your mind and that there’s an actual person talking to you and you wipe your eyes with the back of your hand because you can feel the tears returning, can already start to see him blurring into circles and lines. This is the last thing you want, having a stranger watching you cry like a lost little boy in the middle of the park for the dumbest reasons and you almost want to turn and run the other way because you can already feel the wave of embarrassment bubbling in the pit of your stomach.

But all of a sudden, there’s a handkerchief waving in front of your nose, a pale blue cloth with a cartoon monkey in the corner, and you shift your eyes back to the stranger, a small smile already playing on his lips.

“Go on,” he says, and you trace a line from his lips down to his neck, his shoulder, his sleeve, and you can’t help but notice, just barely hidden from view beneath the cuff, a series of scars, old scars, curving pale lines on his skin that converge in some places, connecting like bridges, almost like written words. You drag your eyes to the handkerchief as quickly as you laid eyes on them because you start to feel like you’re intruding in something private, like you’ve seen something you weren’t supposed to see, a secret that’s probably best forgotten.

Instead of acknowledging it, you slowly slide the fabric from his fingers and bring it to the space under your eyes, dabbing the wetness prickling your skin.

“Thanks,” you say, shifting your attention to your feet and watching a single leaf sliding across the concrete and crashing into your shoe. All at once, your problems seem a thousand miles away, like they were never there, and the only thing you can think about are the scars, some sort of perverse fascination that you wish he didn’t notice because the last thing you want to come across as is rude and you appreciate his small act of kindness, you really, really do.

“Do you mind if I sit with you?” he asks after what seems like forever, and you look up at him with a shake of your head before you can even process his question, and the next moment, he’s sitting down a few inches from you, the space a hand’s width apart, and he rests his elbows on his thighs and links his fingers together before turning to you with eyes burning with curiosity.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he ventures, voice wary, like he’s talking to a wounded animal, but you’re not a wounded animal, not even close, just a silly boy with his head in the clouds all wrapped up in visions of romance and roses for so long that he’s forgotten how it feels to touch the ground.

“It’s nothing,” you say, softer than you intended, but you try to force a smile to convince him otherwise. “Just stupid stuff.”

“Well, it can’t be just ‘stupid stuff’ if it’s making you upset,” he says, turning his attention to the grass on the other side of the path, and you try to think of a reply, try to come up with a more elaborate excuse because being cheated on doesn’t seem like a rational reason to cry.

But then you hear him utter a quiet laugh before you can open your mouth and you look at him with a raised brow, and he closes his eyes and shakes his head like he’s just remembered something funny.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, prying in your business like that,” he says, leaning forward and looking at his feet. “It’s just that, from personal experience, I find that talking about things that make us upset… _helps_. It helps.”

You’re taken aback by the statement and at first, you’re not quite sure how to react, confusion washing over your face because he’s been nothing but gracious and nice and you wonder why he’s apologizing out of nowhere, but then you remember the scars and all the things that might have led to them and you start to think that maybe he’s right, maybe it _will_ help.

“No, no, it’s okay, really,” you say with a smile, trying to catch him because for some odd reason, you feel like he’s drifting away. “It’s just that it’s early in the morning and I don’t want to bore you with it.”

You hear him chuckle again, louder this time, and you feel lighter somehow, can’t help your smile from widening at the sound, and he looks back at you with a smile of his own.

“You don’t seem like a boring person,” he says, leaning back and crossing his legs, and you watch him with silent fascination because despite not knowing he even existed until a few minutes ago, you feel like you’ve known him your entire life, the way he exudes a comfortable air about him, a sliver of warmth slicing through the cold winter fog like a ray of sunlight, and you feel inexplicably drawn to him like you want to hear about his life, his story the way he wants to listen to yours, and all of a sudden, you can feel soft flames kissing your cheeks.

He stands up and pulls his jacket tighter around him, and he takes a quick glance at his watch.

“Well, it’s only ten past seven and I’ve got nothing much to do today. Do you want to grab some breakfast? I’ll buy.”

It’s your turn to chuckle because maybe you _have_ known him all your life, maybe in a past life, a future life, and you grip the handkerchief tight in your fingers before standing up and stuffing your hands in your pockets, feeling a weight slowly lifting off your shoulders.

You’re not exactly sure what you’re feeling, but it feels _good_.

“Sure.”

  


-

  


When Harry visits you, it’s quiet.

You can see the trees swaying outside your window but you can’t hear the rustling, can’t hear the wind, can’t hear the cars passing by, can’t hear Zayn’s soft breathing as he curls up closer to you, half-buried under the covers with his legs twined around yours. Shards of moonlight litter the floor like pale jewels and shadows shift against the walls like they’re dancing, but the room seems darker, somehow.

It takes you a while before you notice him, a shapeless figure in the corner of your eye, blending in with the fixtures in your room like he’s been there the whole time, a trick of the eye, just a chair, a desk, a mirror, a man standing in front of the closet doors with his arms hanging limply at his sides like a forgotten statue, a mannequin that doesn’t belong.

He’s looking right at you and at first, you think it’s absurd because he doesn’t have eyes, he _never_ has eyes, just slight indentations on his skin where his eye sockets would be but you can _feel_ it, can feel his gaze bearing down on you and all at once, your chest starts to feel heavier, can feel your ribs starting to collapse in on your lungs and you feel like there’s a paper bag stretched over your head, thinning the air inside your throat.

He takes a sudden step forward and you clutch at the edges of your blanket, gripping tight until your knuckles turn white and you feel Zayn shifting next to you, his arm sliding over your stomach and his hand coming to rest on your collarbone. Harry watches on, leaning forward, trying to figure you out, and you unclench your fist and wrap your fingers around Zayn’s wrist, grounding yourself, fighting the anxiety trying to rip your body in half.

He takes another step, a longer stride this time, stretching nearly halfway across the room, or maybe it was many steps, you’re not entirely sure, the moonlight dimming and the shadows spreading in a second, but before you can even blink your eyes, he’s right there, just a few inches from your face, so close, you can almost hear a whisper of breath coming from the empty mask he calls his face. You can see each individual strand of hair. The black veins on his neck. The movement in his face like he’s trying to tell you something but you don’t know what to think, too scared, too confused.

“What do you want?” you say softly, voice shaky and thin like a plate of glass ready to shatter, and you start to feel claustrophobic, like the walls themselves are closing in on you.

Harry’s face stops moving and he leans closer, forehead almost touching yours, curls dancing on your skin but they don’t feel welcome, don’t feel _right_ , like a million tiny spiders crawling on your cheeks, and your heart is racing now, beating through your fingertips, squeezing at your temples with every pulse.

But Harry just hovers, and you shut your eyes with a sharp breath and tighten your grip on Zayn’s wrist, telling yourself that it isn’t real, that he’s not there and it’s all in your head and all of this is just a dream and when you open your eyes, he’ll be gone and everything will be back to the way it’s supposed to be.

But when you hear his voice, deep and slow and so, so _familiar_ , it sends a shiver down your spine and drowns your lungs in ice water.

_“I want you to see me.”_

Your eyes open in a flash and you find yourself staring at the ceiling.

The moonlight has seeped back into the room, almost like they never left, and you can hear the wind blowing outside, the leaves rustling, the cars passing by, Zayn’s deep, slow breaths, peaceful, like a baby.

You feel dizzy and drained, like you’ve been running for miles without stopping, and you can still feel your heart pounding, cold sweat sticking needles into your forehead. You sit up and look around the room, trying to find Harry or anything that might suggest that he _had_ been there and that you weren’t just imagining him or what just happened a few seconds before, but nothing looks disturbed or out of place, no figures standing in front of the closet doors, no Harry.

The bedsprings creak and you glance down just in time to see Zayn rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, fighting back a yawn without success.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, voice raspy, still half-asleep. You look at him for a moment, watching the shadows cast by his eyelashes, the way his skin glows like the moon, and in your stupor, you almost say it, the words almost leaving your lips before you catch them at the last second.

_Harry was here._

But you keep your mouth closed and you slither back under the sheets, feeling Zayn’s arm wrapping around your waist and pulling you close, the stubble on his chin tickling your neck as he gives you a soft kiss.

You turn your head and give him a smile.

“Nothing. Just a bad dream.”

  


-

  


It’s been a year but you’re still nervous, still sitting on pins and needles and you’re not sure you’re ready for this, not just yet.

Give it more time, maybe, more thought because it’s hard to tell how this will turn out, if it’s even worth it to _try_ , at least, and anxiety starts filling you up like a balloon and you’re afraid that one little mistake can make you pop.

But you know you need this, know it in your bones that it’s high time that you take some sort of action because it’s never healthy to dwell on the past, never did anyone any good, like a wound that wants to close, wants to heal but you keep ripping it open at the last second and the pain shoots up in your veins like a drug because something inside of you _wants_ to remember, wants to keep remembering. But you don’t want to remember anymore, tired of playing the same images in your head every night before you go to bed and you want—you _need_ some peace and normality in your life as badly as you want to breathe.

You sigh and tap the side of the coffee mug with a finger, looking around the café for nothing in particular, going over people’s faces passing by, the plates in their hands, the steam from their cups, mostly because you’re not exactly sure what he looks like, have never met him before. You only have a vague description to go from, which, coming from Louis, is probably not entirely accurate.

 _“Well, he’s got real pretty hazel eyes,”_ Louis had said, a smile creeping on his lips, _“and very long eyelashes. Very long. Like a camel.”_

_“He looks like a camel?”_

_“Well, not physically, obviously, don’t be daft.”_ He’d rolled his eyes then, taking a hit from his cigarette and letting the white smoke spill from his lips. _“But if a camel somehow got turned into a human, I would imagine that’s what it’d look like. Just—when you see him, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Trust me.”_

You sigh again and take a sip of coffee, letting the warm liquid linger on your tongue for a few seconds because the anxiety’s growing stronger now, an army of bees buzzing in the pit of your stomach, face starting to get hotter and you can almost hear every tick of the clock as the seconds pass by, and the more you sit there, the more you start to feel like maybe this was not the best idea, that you’re completely _mad_ for considering something that Louis suggested so seriously.

For a moment, you decide on just finishing the cup of coffee and going home to wallow in your embarrassment in the comfort of your own bed like a proper human being, but before you can make a move to down the beverage, you hear the tinkling of the bell hanging over the door, and you turn your head just in time to see the man standing in the middle of the café bundled up in layers of jackets and scarves, hands deep in his pockets, turning his head every which way, looking for something.

All of a sudden, you find yourself smiling because you’d never even considered the possibility of an actual person fitting Louis’s description, and you were a hair’s width away from shaking it off as one of his made-up stories designed to make you feel better, but the moment you see the man, it’s like time has stopped and the bees explode into butterflies, the anxiety clawing at your chest turning into something warm, warmer than anything coffee could ever provide.

The man is _beautiful_ , straight out of a fashion magazine, with thick dark hair sweeping upwards and warm, brown eyes, shadowed by eyelashes spun from black gold, facial hair trimmed sharp as steel to match his angular features, and for a split second, you start to feel insecure about your own appearance, inadequate somehow, like you don’t belong. That was, until his eyes finally find what he’d been looking for, and his gaze sends a shiver down your spine and you grip the mug tight, so tight, you can almost hear the ceramic cracking from the pressure.

He raises a hand with a smile and makes his way toward your table, and you feel a lump in your throat, suddenly aware of every vein in your body, the blood pulsing through your fingertips and it’s an odd feeling, an echo of guilt pooling in your stomach, faint as a whisper but you can still feel that it’s there.

“Niall?” the man asks, and you try to shake off the feelings because you _need_ this, you really do, need to maintain some semblance of a life that doesn’t involve living in denial and grief, living with parasites that eat you from the inside out every time you wake up and go to sleep and you’ve had _enough_ , really, you’ve had it.

One tragedy shouldn’t turn your entire life into another one.

You nod with a smile and he pulls out the chair across from you, running his long fingers through his hair as he takes a seat, and you raise the mug to your lips because you’re not sure what to say, didn’t really think through the possible topics of conversation you might have because you were too nervous and anxious and maybe this is all a—

But then he’s smiling at you like you’re the only person in the café and your cheeks feel white hot, hotter than the steam swirling around your face, the way his eyes disappear in half-moon shapes and you can’t help but stare, can’t even begin to imagine how a person can be so _beautiful_.

“I’m Zayn,” he says, linking his fingers on the table. “It’s great to finally meet you. Louis’s told me so much about you.”

You chuckle and put the mug down, heart starting to race. “Nothing good, I bet.”

It’s his turn to laugh. “You’d be surprised.”

You perk up your brow, interest piqued. There’s something about the way he’s looking at you, the way his brown eyes seem like they’re trying to unravel you piece by piece, which is odd in itself because you’ve only met the man for a few minutes and you don’t even know his last name. Then again, maybe he’s already figured out how tough you’ve built your walls before you opened your mouth and you can’t really blame him for noticing, how you’re a walking turtle shell afraid of coming out and feeling the sun on your face because you’re frightened it might burn you right down to your bones, a bud of cinder left on charcoal.

“Can I get you anything?” he says after what seems like an eternity, and you’re pulled away from your thoughts in a second and your attention is back on his lips. “A croissant, maybe? I’ll buy.”

As soon as he says the last words, there’s a spark in the back of your head like a bullet through your brain and suddenly, you see a misty blue film over your eyes, a silk veil wrapped around your head fluttering like wings against your skin, and you see flashes of reddened eyes and healing scars, the curling of smoke from soft pink lips, a monkey in the corner of a handkerchief.

You feel a peculiar bubbling in your stomach and you feel like you’re going to be sick.

But you shake your head and flash a smile and you’ve trained yourself well, you think, learned how to fool yourself into thinking that smiling can fix anything and you’ve begun to feel safe hiding behind a façade built for paper houses, ready to collapse the moment it catches the slightest gust of wind.

“Sure,” you reply, pretending like nothing happened, and he grins and gets up from his seat and you’re left with your thoughts, a voice in your head telling you that _yes, this is good, this is very good_ and you sigh and you smile and you look over to where Zayn’s standing in line with his hands in his back pockets reading the menu over the counter and something quickly catches your attention when your eyes glaze over the window overlooking the street.

It was only for a split second but you saw it clearly, like a frozen frame from a film you’ve seen a hundred million times. The tall, thin frame, the soft brown curls, a flash of green and stripes of flesh on wrists.

You’ve seen him before, touched him, _knew_ him, knew him like the back of your hand and you stand up in shock and your breath is caught in your throat, a deep pounding hammering all over your body, heart thrashing against your lungs like it wants to burst out from your ribs. You can feel eyes on you and you grip your shirt over your chest, so hard your knuckles start to hurt from the pressure, and your ragged breaths scrape your ears raw like sandpaper.

Zayn’s voice is muffled from around the corner and your heartbeat is pounding in the back of your head, a deep drumming sound getting louder and louder, and you find yourself looking at an empty spot in the sidewalk like you’ve just seen something you weren’t supposed to see, like you’ve just seen a ghost.

Maybe it _was_ a ghost, a fragment of your memory that somehow slipped out of its cage the moment you let your walls down, because you know, you know for a _fact_ that Harry is buried a hundred feet under the ground.

  


-

  


It started out as a small altercation.

You’ve never been one to get into fights, have always managed to stay out of the fray when you needed to and you think yourself a pacifist if anything because fists and bruises and broken noses never solved your problems, but this time was different. Not because you didn’t have a choice or you couldn’t just simply wave it off and walk away, but because _this_ —this is personal, and when you feel the blood rushing out of your nose and onto the asphalt, you wipe it off with your sleeve and lunge at one of them again with a guttural scream, fist hitting the man square in the jaw and sending him staggering backwards.

A jolt of pain sears your knuckles right down to the bone but you ignore the pain, seeing nothing but red and the adrenaline courses through your body like a lightning bolt, sparks flying off your fingertips in purple blotches and steady drips of blood, feeling like every vein in your body is about to explode.

The man recovers and reciprocates the action in a second, his large knuckles catching your nose with a deafening crack, delivering twice the impact in half the time and you fall on your backside with a strangled cry, your face engulfed in white-hot flames and you’re beginning to feel light-headed, a fog wrapping around your head like a snake coiling around its prey, twisting for the kill, and you fail to anticipate the boot coming towards you like a sledgehammer and you’re caught right in the center of your stomach, knocking the wind right out of you. You roll over to your side and clutch your abdomen, the pain searing your body and it _hurts_ , hurts to move, hurts to breathe, and when you cough, you can feel blood spraying out.

You can hear laughter in your ears and you start to think that maybe this is it, this is what finally does you in, a stupid encounter with drunk men harboring personal vendettas against men who happen to like other men and you think it’s a terrible way to go, stuck in an alley a few feet from your car bleeding out of every orifice and suffering through broken bones and piercing headaches and maybe a reprieve wouldn’t be so bad, not when every breath feels like your lungs are a second away from collapsing.

You open your eyes and look up just in time to see one of them smash his fist across Harry’s jaw, a deafening sound that makes you want to vomit, and Harry’s brought down to his knees, hair falling over his face, his expression impossible to determine, and the man gives him a kick for good measure, laughing to his mate because they both know Harry won’t fight back anymore, and your heart sinks when Harry’s stomach hits the ground, his eyes landing on you.

 _“Come on, let’s get out of here,”_ one of them says, spitting on the ground next to Harry’s face, and the next second, you hear them break into a run, footsteps getting fainter as they turn the corner and out of the alleyway.

You stay on the ground for a few minutes, trying to will your muscles to move, and when you try to push yourself up on your arms, a shooting pain erupts in the pit of your stomach, and you clench your teeth and squeeze your eyes, a groan escaping your lips.

“I’m sorry,” you suddenly hear Harry say, his tone dejected, like the whole thing was his fault, and you open your eyes and catch his in a second, brows furrowing, ignoring the pain pounding throughout your body. “I shouldn’t have provoked them like that, shouldn’t have…”

He’s always had the tendency to do this, apologizing for things completely out of his hands, like placing the blame on him would somehow make the situation better, attributing the bad things that happen to him as his own doing and not as a byproduct of a terrible world, and you don’t like it, don’t like it when he feels like he has to lift the burden from your shoulders just so you won’t get tired, as if it’s only meant to be carried by one person. But you’ve always prided yourself in your resilience and you can’t be shattered like glass very easily, your skin hard as ivory, hard as steel, and it’s high time that Harry sees that you’re perfectly capable of carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, too.

“Don’t apologize,” you manage to say through your teeth, biting back the splinters digging into your stomach as you push yourself up, and it’s Harry’s turn to look at you with furrowed brows. “It’s their problem, not ours.”

You flash a smile as he hauls himself to his knees, remembering the fury in his eyes the moment you heard the men talking about the _“flaming poofters”_ holding hands in the alley, choking in their own bile as they laugh and point like seven-year-old boys in a schoolyard playground, remembering the way he landed the first blow, swift and strong, catching the man’s face off-guard, and the sound of skin against bone had never been more satisfying.

And then you remember just how much you love him.

“I can hold your hand whenever I want,” you say with a grin as you feel Harry’s arms coming carefully around your waist to hoist you up to your feet, and you map out the bruises on his face, the cuts on his lips, the splatter of blood on his jaws, the pounding on your broken nose mirroring the hammering in your chest, the way only being this close to Harry can do. “And the next time anybody’s got a problem with it, they’d have to deal with me first.”

When he smiles back, you feel like the luckiest boy in the world.

“Alright, then, tough guy,” he says with a laugh, “but first, we’ll need to get kickboxing classes, won’t we?”

Your laugh reverberates against the walls and soon, he’s leading you back to the car, slowly limping along the asphalt to minimize the damage, a jolt of pain shooting up your leg with every step, but you grin and bear it and you clutch at the back of his jacket for dear life, afraid you’ll crumble into a tiny million pieces if you ever let him go.

  


-

  


You’ve always hated talking to medical professionals.

You hate the way they look at you with beady, condescending eyes, trying to pass them off as legitimate concern because they _really_ care about you and your well-being. But you know very well that this is all a farce, a blatant, unapologetic lie, unquestioned and accepted by society, and you can see past their horn-rimmed glasses and their clipboards with unintelligible scribbles of everything that’s wrong with you and see that they’re only doing this because they want to feel better about themselves, that by helping poor, unfortunate souls and their ills and disadvantages, they’ll feel like they’re doing something good in the world and they can rest in their beds at night with a smile knowing that they’ll never be like the poor, pathetic saps that shell out truckloads of money to fix something that isn’t even there in the first place.

And it makes you angry.

You shift uncomfortably in your seat because the room’s too white, too _clean_ , sanitized to the point of sterilization, to the point of quarantine and you start to feel the dirt wriggling under your fingernails, insects crawling underneath your skin, and all the psychiatrist does is watch you from the comfort of his own desk a hundred miles from your chair, hands forming a steeple on neatly organized paperwork with a faint smile on his face. The walls are lined with framed certificates and degrees and a _Ph.D._ and you fight the urge to roll your eyes because Zayn’s sitting in the chair next to yours and the last thing you want to do cause a scene.

But you make a point to look as unhappy as you possibly can because this is all Zayn’s idea and there’s nothing wrong with you.

“So, tell me again about these dreams,” the man says, and he separates his fingers and picks up the paper sitting at the top of the pile, eyes hovering over the words as he waits for you to answer, and you take a deep breath and cross your arms over your chest, wanting to get this entire meeting over as soon as you can.

“It’s raining, it’s always raining,” you begin, trying to make your voice sound as neutral and removed as possible, and the man looks up from his paper and reaches for a pen. You can feel Zayn’s eyes trained on you but you keep yours on the doctor. “He’s standing in front of me but I don’t see his face, I never see his face.”

“Who’s ‘he’?” he asks, jotting down something on the paper, like what you’ve just said is of the utmost importance, and all of a sudden, you feel yourself tense up, something starting to stir deep in your chest, but you try not to think much of it, let it roll off your shoulders like it’s something insignificant, like an itch, and you tap the floor with the tip of your shoe to distract yourself because when you start to think, that’s when you lose control.

“Harry,” you finally say, and the name sounds odd coming from your lips, like you’ve just said something you shouldn’t have, something taboo, and you decide then that you don’t like the way it sounds, the way it sounds foreign, sounds like it doesn’t belong, not on your lips and not on anyone else’s, and that’s when you start to feel your heart beating through your fingertips.

“Alright, and who is Harry?” the man asks, the question so elementary and juvenile that for a split second, you see yourself lunging at him across the room and beating him to a pulp because he doesn’t know, can’t even _begin_ to understand and you don’t like the way he looks at you, watching you like a caged animal, like a sideshow attraction and you try to gather yourself, breathing deep and balling your fists on your thighs.

“H—Harry’s his ex-boyfriend,” Zayn cuts in so suddenly that it takes you by surprise, and you quickly snap your head to him, a small bud of disbelief growing in the back of your head, but his eyes are on the doctor and not on you, his expression hard to pinpoint, it’s _always_ hard to pinpoint, like looking at a mask and expecting it to burst into life, and you start to feel hot, the temperature in the room rising with every tick of the clock.

You feel betrayed.

“Ex-boyfriend,” the doctor repeats, scribbling down more notes and it sounds insignificant coming from his mouth, like a throwaway comment you toss at dinner parties when you’re getting to know your guests and it makes you sound like a fool, having dreams about your _ex-boyfriend_ of all things, a schoolyard heartbreak, something superficial and vapid, and you can just hear the man saying _stop wasting my time don’t you have better things to worry about_.

But they cut deeper than that, the memories, the ones you’ve spent all these years trying to bury in your chest under layers of soil and gravel, planting trees and flowers on your skin to make yourself seem colorful and alive, like everything’s fine but it’s _never_ fine, not even when you try to convince yourself that it was all just a figment of your overactive imagination and that none of it existed, none of it ever happened but all it does is spit out the truth like a spray of acid and your flowers wither and your trees crumble into dust, filtering through your fingertips like sand and you feel vulnerable and naked and scared and you don’t know what to do.

“And was it an amicable parting? Or did you have some problems nearing the end of your relationship?” the doctor asks, and you can practically see him tiptoeing around you like you’re made of porcelain, his words careful, calculated, but you’re tired of it, tired of his questions, tired of the memories, tired of hearing his name in your head like a broken record and there’s nothing you want to do more than show him just how dangerous porcelain can be when it’s a shattered mess on the floor, shards glinting, waiting patiently for him to make a move.

“Well, you see—” Zayn begins, but you shake your head and he stops at once, eyes on you like a wounded animal, and you shift your attention to the doctor and you watch him with steely eyes because you’ve had enough.

“Harry’s dead,” you say as nonchalantly as possible, your face expressionless, and you can feel the tension filling the air like billows of smoke. “We didn’t have an ‘amicable parting’ or had time to resolve the problems near the end of our relationship because he’s dead. There’s nothing else to it. He’s dead and there’s nothing I can do about it. There’s no problem, there’s nothing to fix, there’s no need for a cure because I’m fine and everything’s just _fine_. I don’t need an hour listening to you telling me things I already know.”

The doctor’s mouth is wide open and Zayn’s face is buried in his hands, but you can’t bring yourself to worry about them because your heart is racing a million miles an hour and you can feel your entire body shaking, shaking from anger, from fear, and you take few deep breaths before you decide to stand up and make your way towards the door.

You slip out into the hallway without another word and you close the door carefully behind you, hand gripping the doorknob so tightly, your knuckles have turned white.

And when you let go of the cold metal, you turn around and press your back on the wall, mind buzzing with a hundred different thoughts, and there’s a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, like you’re going to be sick, and you slide down the plaster and hug your knees close to your chest, and you cry.

  


-

  


The first thing you hear when you push through the apartment door is the sound of running water.

It’s almost seven in the evening and you think it slightly weird that Harry would be taking a bath at this hour, but you only shrug and close the door behind you with a smile because you can’t wait to get started, can feel your hands itching around the grocery bags filled to the brim with meat and spices and fruits and vegetables, and when you cross the living room and slip into the kitchen, you think that maybe this is a good idea, having Harry out of the way for a little while because you’ve been planning this for weeks and you want everything to be absolutely _perfect_.

Maybe it’s all a bit silly, getting excited over cooking, but you’ve never done anything like this before and you’ve always stared in wonder during cooking programs you and Harry would watch sometimes, how the chefs manage to create the most beautiful plates of food out of thin air, just like magic, and you’ve always wanted to become a magician ever since you were a young boy. Though a three-course dinner was probably not what your younger self had in mind, when Harry sees the candles on the table and hears the soft jazz music whistling in the air, you think with a grin that it’ll suffice just the same.

You drop the bags on the counter and pull out the sheet of recipes neatly folded and stuck in your back pocket, and you tape it on the cupboard door and give it a quick read-through as you wash your hands on the sink.

You start to rifle through the contents, pulling out potatoes and ripe tomatoes, some onions, a few bulbs of garlic, a box of spaghetti because you don’t want to risk making your own, herbs, cheese, and soon you have a large collection of ingredients staring right at you, waiting for instructions. You place your hands on your hips and lean forward to read the recipes again, carefully this time, repeating each numbered item under your breath. The menu for tonight is a small pasta dish, _pasta puttanesca_ , roasted lamb chops over creamy mashed potatoes and braised baby carrots, and for dessert, an apple pie with vanilla ice cream. You’re looking forward to dessert the most because Harry used to work at a bakery when he was younger, and he said he’s always liked the apple pie. You hope you don’t disappoint.

You notice the sound of the running water again and you assume that Harry had only been in there for a few minutes before you came in, and you take a deep breath and will yourself to get started.

You turn on the oven and pull out a big pot, filling it with water halfway full and setting it on the stovetop before turning on the flame on high. A dash of salt dances into the pot, and you place a cutting board on the counter, followed by the onions, garlic, and two tomatoes. You reach for the large knife in the knife block but you realize with a start that it’s not there, your hand waving in empty space.

Your surprise immediately turns into confusion, not sure where the knife could have gone. You always make a point to put things where they belong when you wash the dishes and you’re sure you’ve always put the knives in the block, and you scratch your head and look around the counter to see if you’d already taken it out and had just forgotten. But it’s not anywhere in sight, not behind the vegetables, not sitting next to the meat, and you open the drawers under the sink and carefully rifle through utensils, keeping your eyes peeled for a glint of sharp steel.

Running water filters through your ears again and you think that maybe Harry’s misplaced it, probably cleaning while you were out grocery shopping and it slipped his mind to put it back. It’s not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things—you have other knives you can use—but it makes you feel uneasy, an incessant gnawing in a deep corner of your chest, and you shake your head because you’re just being silly and it’ll turn up surely after you’ve cleared up the mess in the kitchen.

You’re reaching for another knife when all of a sudden, a jolt of anxiety runs down your spine, a peculiar feeling erupting in the pit of your stomach, like something’s breathing down your neck, and you retract your hand and turn around, facing the direction of the bathroom where the sound of water is getting louder, and that’s when you feel your heart starting to race.

“Harry?” you call out, voice unsure, your face getting hotter by the second, and you start to make your way out of the kitchen and into the hallway, anxiety growing stronger in your chest, climbing and twisting around your bones like thick, thorny vines, and you can hear yourself breathing harder.

“Harry, are you there?”

You turn the corner and at once, you see water starting to pool around the door to the bathroom, and you feel your stomach starting to turn, fear crawling inside your lungs like ice water, a million tiny needles threatening to shred them into pieces, and you waste no time running over to the door and twisting the handle to let yourself in.

Your heart sinks when you realize it’s locked.

“Harry, let me in!”

Panic coats your voice like tar, strained and strangled, like your throat’s closing up, and you bang your palms hard on the door, pain rippling down your arms with each hit but you only hit harder, faster, desperation flooding your body when you see a sudden flash of Harry’s wrists in the back of your head, the raised bumps of flesh that had always seemed to form words but you could never understand what they meant or why they were there.

“Harry!” you cry out when you fail to hear a response, the water spreading further down into the hallway, soaking your feet to the bone. You suddenly feel helpless, cracks forming in your skin like spider webs, your heart speeding faster than a bullet train, pumping gallons of blood into your hands, your face, your brain and you feel like your skull’s about to burst open from the pressure, but you try to ignore it, try to ignore the pain in your palms because the most important thing in the world at that moment was to get inside the bathroom, get to Harry, and you don’t want to think about the new additions in his extensive collection of scars.

“Harry, please!” you plead one more time, voice like sandpaper, and you take a deep breath and jam your shoulder into the door, shards of pain exploding at the point of impact and you squeeze your eyes shut, the back of your head throbbing, and you’re scared, you’re _really_ scared and you don’t know what to do, but then you hear a splash of water on the other side and you realize you can’t waste any time, and you crash yourself against the door one more time, stronger this time, the pain doubling in size.

You hear a crack in the wood and it takes you by surprise, but you collect yourself and you try again, stepping back and building momentum with each attempt, your shoulder engulfed in fire and your ribcage dangerously close to collapsing, and you weld iron into your skin with your cries of pain until with one final push, the door swings open, and when you see Harry in the bathtub with his arm hanging limp off the edge, a thick line of blood from his wrist swirling into the water, that’s when you find out that even the thickest of iron will always corrode.

Time stops and you can’t feel your heartbeat, can’t feel your muscles moving, can’t hear yourself breathing; the only thing you can see is the redness pooling in the water around your feet, the knife half-hidden in the water beneath his fingertips. Your eyes travel up his arm, his scars hidden by an angry blotch of crimson, a network of green veins sprouting from the gore, winding up his pale skin, paler than he usually is, and when you see his face, you watch the way his eyes are closed—peaceful, serene, a ghost of a smile on his lips, like he’d been waiting for this, been waiting a _long_ time, and when you travel down to his chest, you see the silver cross of his necklace gently moving up and down, up and down, almost like it’s floating in the water.

But you know for a fact that silver doesn’t float on water and the world around you comes crashing back into motion when you realize that Harry’s still breathing.

“Harry?” you whisper, your voice starting to fail, and you try to keep yourself from shaking but it’s like you’ve lost control of your body, lost control of your thoughts, and you feel your eyes start to burn when you see his eyelids fluttering back to life.

Suddenly, your feet spring to life and before you know it, you find yourself kneeling beside him, grabbing his arm and raising it in the air, feeling the blood sliding down your own but you keep your eyes to him, watching him as his eyes open a crack, bright green eyes peering around red rings.

“Help! Somebody, please, help! Help!” you yell desperately until you can feel your vocal chords starting to rip, and you cup his cheek when his eyes land on you, his face blurring in circles and lines when you start to cry.

“Ni?” he whispers, thin and fragile, like a sheet of glass a breath away from shattering, and the sound is like a hammer in the center of your chest, peeling away the iron piece by piece and you try and pick them up and weld them again because you can’t afford to break in front of him but they’re too weak, too corroded to stay together and you end up burning through your skin, heating the porcelain that lies underneath until you start to feel the fractures.

“You’re okay, Harry, you’re okay,” you tell him softly, wiping your eyes with the back of your hand, the air thinning around your lungs but you fight through the pain and you brush the strands of hair away from his eyes. “I’m right here, don’t worry. You’ll be fine, you’ll be just fine, I promise.”

Harry blinks a few times and you see a tear roll down and splash into the water, and you wipe your eyes again because Harry needs you to be strong.

“I’m sorry, Ni,” he says, voice above a whisper, cracked in places, “I’m so sorry.”

You shake your head and run your thumb under his eyes before turning towards the door and taking a deep breath. 

“Help! Please! Someone help! Help!”

When you turn back, you see that the blood has already started to soak into your shirt, and when you see him closing his eyes, you start to feel the world around you crumbling underneath your feet.

  


-

  


It’s cold.

Freezing, biting cold, icicles forming inside your pores, pushing under your skin, and you tighten your jacket around you and step around a tombstone with a lone wilted flower, petals brittle and brown and forgotten, and you shake your head in pity because there’s nothing worse than being forgotten.

“It’s freezing, yeah?” Zayn asks, voice cutting through the thick morning fog, and you nod your reply and walk closer to him, hands deep in your pockets, trying to fight the numbness spreading in your fingertips like a sea of needles, stripping away at your veins fiber by fiber, and you look at the statues of angels and crosses wrapped in vines, moss covering the marbled surface in patches, small altars of candles and flower vases at their feet. Just ahead, you see a man crouched over a tombstone holding a bouquet of flowers, lips moving but you can’t hear anything, only the sound of frozen grass crunching under your feet, and you feel a sudden emptiness spreading in your chest. You look away when he wipes his eyes on his sleeve.

“Almost there,” you say in a small voice, more to yourself than to Zayn, your feet moving on their own volition, like they’ve already walked this path a million times too many. You know this place more than you like to admit, memorized everything around you like a map pinned to the back of your head, sending pain shooting down your spine whenever you try to remove the pins holding it up, and you try to ignore the large oak tree coming up on the left, just behind the statue of the Virgin Mary with her arm broken off, lying right next to her feet, always just out of reach, the place where you saw Harry cry for the first time when you visited his father’s grave. He was so soft, then, so vulnerable, a sensitive bundle of nerves twisted around each other in the shape of a young man, the pain of anger and loss radiating out of his skin like moonlight through the breaks in your curtain, subtle and subdued, but _there_ nonetheless.

 _“I used to laugh all the time,”_ he’d said, picking up a piece of rock and turning it in his hand. _“I was happier then.”_

 _“You’re not happy now?”_ you’d ventured to ask, tapping the grass with the tip of your shoe. _“Do I not make you happy?”_

 _“Of course you do,”_ he’d said, a small smile on his lips, the wind playing softly with his hair. _“You’ve made me the happiest I’ve been in years.”_

 _“What’s the matter, then?”_ You’d looked at him with a frown, trying to understand the sadness behind his bright green eyes, but he’d laughed, then, wiping his face with the back of his hand, the network of scars sliding into view.

_“Everything’s just fine.”_

You shake your head to push the thought away and you keep walking.

You thought it would take more effort on Zayn’s part to convince you to visit Harry’s grave because he knows very well how you treat any subject related to him, how you go on the defense in the blink of an eye, knives sticking out of your skin at the mere mention of his name like an armor, just waiting for someone to get too close, and Zayn’s always treaded around you like you’re a volcano, like you’re ready to erupt at any given moment, and sometimes, you think maybe it’s a bad thing, how you’ve treated the situation like something that shouldn’t be talked about, something that was completely off-limits because you hate the way it makes you feel, how visions of red run rampant in the back of your head like a broken film projector, playing the same scenes over and over again until they’re burned deep into your brain and you wish you can just forget about it, wish you can turn it off with the flick of a switch and often, you’ve wished it were that easy, that simple.

But you know that nothing in life is ever simple, and you know even better that nothing lasts forever, how everything can change with one simple decision and it makes you step back and reflect and think about what’s _really_ important.

Zayn—well, you look at Zayn and you see someone who’s been there through your tantrums and nightmares, someone who’s been patient enough to keep his distance when you can feel yourself flaring up like a forest fire and you realize just how much he’s done for you, how much he’s taken care of you, how he manages to come in with a bucket of water every time to try and extinguish the flames even though he knows it won’t make a difference, and there’s always a little voice in the back of your head saying that you don’t deserve him, you will _never_ deserve him because all you do is push him away when he wants to get closer and maybe it’s right, maybe Zayn needs someone who can satisfy his curiosity, someone who doesn’t build up his walls higher and higher the moment he feels the slightest crack on the surface and pretends that everything is alright.

You come to a stop and you feel a familiar jolt running down your spine.

You thought you’d get used to it by now, used to seeing his name plastered across the tombstone like the title of a book that hasn’t been opened in ages, the dates of his birth and his death printed underneath a constant reminder of a life lived too short, the fragility of life, like a candle burning in the middle of a storm, but you turn away and slide your hands deeper into your pockets the moment you start to feel the memories rushing back, a dam that keeps on breaking no matter how much you try and plug it up, and you turn your back on it and Zayn and you take a few deep breaths, trying to contain your heartbeat and the pounding in your ears.

“Ni?” you hear Zayn, followed by the crunching of ice, and you give a start when you feel his hand on your shoulder. “You alright?”

“I’m fine,” you say almost automatically, the same thing you always say when people start to notice that you’re not and it’s become a knee-jerk reaction, a force of habit that you’d adopted because you’ve learned that it’s better to pretend that everything’s okay than face the problem, saves you from having to talk about what’s going through your head when the only thing you want to do is forget and move on. And Zayn’s picked up on this a long time ago, knows what entails those magic words and instead of adding fuel to the fire, he steps back and waits for it to die down with gentle pats on your shoulder or a quick squeeze of your hand, and it’s enough to let you know that he’s trying to understand.

“Did you ever figure out why he did it?” he asks carefully, and the question takes you by surprise.

Your body must have reacted because Zayn pulls his hand back in a flash, like he’s just touched fire, but you didn’t feel anything, numbness spreading down your body like rainfall, soaking through your skin and into your bones, and all of a sudden, your head is filled with images of Harry, images so clear and tangible, you swear you can see them unfolding right in front of your eyes.

You see his hair, his hands, a twinkle of green, a cartoon monkey on a handkerchief, a series of scars on his wrists, holding hands, a bruised eye and a cut lip, two ripe tomatoes, a blood-soaked shirt, healing stitches, a night out in the city, a kiss on the cheek, a wave of goodbye, heavy rain, yellow police lines, an angry red mark around his neck, a coffin made of rosewood, a white rose suspended in the air, a tombstone with a bouquet of flowers, teardrops like dew on the petals.

It’s then that you can feel your face heating up, a burning in your eyelids like your eyes are made of fire, and you cross your arms over your chest and turn back around, attention landing on the tombstone like it’s the only thing in the world.

“I’ve—I’ve never figured it out,” you start with a shake of your head, trying your best to keep your voice from cracking. “Never understood why. Two years together and it seemed like everything was fine. He looked—he _was_ happy, he _told_ me he was happy. His scars were healing and he laughed every day. He kissed me in the morning and hugged me at night. He was—there was nothing _wrong_ , Zayn, everything was _fine_ , he kept _telling_ me that everything was _fine_!”

The tears are coming now, a million frozen crystals pricking your cheeks as they trickle down your chin, and then you feel Zayn’s arms wrapping around you from behind, arms coming to rest against your elbows in a tight squeeze and you try to swallow the lump in your throat but it _hurts_ , hurts to talk, to breathe, the cold air suffocating you in a blanket of guilt and helplessness, thinning the air in your lungs like a vacuum. Zayn’s whispering your name in your ears but you only clench your jaws, tighten your fists, trying to fight the sobs threatening to burst out of your chest like wildfire and you rub your face in your sleeve when you see Harry’s smile flashing in the back of your head.

“But he wasn’t fine, Zayn, he wasn’t—I should have _known_ he was struggling, should have known that there’s something—I should have done _something_ , Zayn! I should have done something!”

“It’s not your fault,” Zayn says firmly, holding you tight like he’s afraid you’ll crumble into dust, and you’re sobbing now, deep, painful sobs that shake your entire body, every breath feeling like a knife twisting around your heart and you’re _tired_ , tired of the pain, tired of remembering, tired of treating the guilt thrashing angrily deep inside your chest like a caged animal, throwing a piece of cloth over the rusted iron bars and pretending like it’s behaving. “Niall, it’s not your fault.”

The words ring in your head like an echo, growing fainter and fainter until it’s reduced to a whisper in the wind.

_It’s not your fault it’s not your fault it’s not your fault._

Then there’s a rustling of leaves like it’s summer again and you open your eyes slowly, adjusting your vision around the wet blur of circles and lines, and you can just make out the silhouette of someone standing in front of you, right beside Harry’s tombstone like he’s been there the entire time, like a statue that burst into life.

For a moment, you think it’s Zayn, having moved from his spot in a fraction of a second to give you some air, some space to breathe and you appreciate the gesture because he always knew when to step back and when to pull you close, almost as if he had a book with your name on it and it’s as easy as turning the pages to the right chapter, and you’ve always wondered how he managed to be patient with you even when you couldn’t be patient with yourself, a miracle worker in the guise of a young man with sharp features and pretty, pretty eyes.

That was, until you feel Zayn’s arms tightening around you, like he wants to pull you inside his chest and keep you there forever, and it doesn’t take long for you to realize that the person standing before you is—

“Harry?”

The name rolls off your tongue easily, like it’s been waiting patiently to be said, and Harry’s there, standing in front of you with his hands in his pockets, looking at you expectantly with those eyes you’ve been trying to forget, and your breath catches in your throat when you see his face for the first time—his eyebrows, the bridge of his nose, lips stretched into a wide grin, not only skin wrapped around bones like fabric the way you saw him in your dreams, a faceless mask with no emotion. You’d forgotten how beautiful he was, the way the wind likes to play with his thick, curly hair, the collection of scars on his wrists converging together and forming words you were never able to understand until now, and you can read them perfectly like they’re written in ink on paper, a page torn out of a book you’ve always desperately wanted to finish.

_“I love you.”_

You let the tears fall again and you want to step out of your skin for a moment and wrap your arms around him, feel his hands on your back again, his chest against yours because you miss him, you miss him _so much_ , more than you can ever put into words, and it pains you to admit that there never came a time when you opened your eyes in the morning and you didn’t miss his smile.

“I’m so sorry,” you say softly, your heart breaking into a million pieces around your feet, shards of crimson disappearing beneath frozen blades of grass, tumbling like so many marbles along the ice, but Harry bends down and picks them up one by one, carefully putting them together like puzzle pieces and he holds it as if it were the most fragile thing in the world, the fractures forming spiderweb patterns like shattered glass, and he takes a step forward and presses it back into your chest with a smile, placing a small kiss on the corner of your lips.

_“You’ll be just fine.”_

And then he was gone.

 _“Niall?”_ you hear Zayn ask, his voice vibrating against your back, and in a second, you’re pulled back to the cemetery, the cold breeze ruffling your hair, the smell of Zayn’s cologne wrapping around your head like silk, and your eyes land on Harry’s tombstone again, a warm glow spreading in the area where his lips left your skin.

Zayn loosens his hold around your chest and he walks over to face you, concern etched deep in his eyes. “What is it?”

At first, you don’t say anything, trying to get your bearings like you’ve just woken up from a dream, and maybe it _was_ a dream, just another figment of your imagination like it’s always been because you’re not _mad_ and you know that Harry is lying in his coffin, sleeping peacefully in the ground right under your feet, but then you start to feel a weight lifting off your chest, the pressure in your ribcage melting like the ice around your shoes, and you slide your hand in your pocket and pull out a pale blue handkerchief, a grinning monkey printed in the corner.

“I saw Harry,” you say, focusing your eyes back to Zayn and clutching the cloth tightly, and Zayn furrows his brows because you’ve never brought him up before on your own accord, has always accepted the unspoken rule against the subject like he’d signed a contract, but you can’t feel yourself tensing up anymore at the mention of his name, can’t feel your muscles clenching when you see his face in the back of your head and your heart’s beating normally again, a steady drumming in your fingertips, almost like music, the porcelain under your skin turning to tempered steel in the blink of an eye, the cracks welded together, twice as strong, unbreakable, and you thread your fingers around Zayn’s like bright green vines, trees and flowers sprouting from your pores like sunbeams through the rain, like the promise of springtime, and you stretch your lips into a smile, feeling like you’re breathing for the first time in your life.

“He told me I’ll be just fine.”


End file.
